Sometimes it can be good to take some more time in blitz and not play auto-pilot - impulsive fast. After black's 17...Be2 the first impulse was to play 18.Rfe1 but then after 18...Bd3 I would lose the pawn on e4 or the exchange. With the black king on f8 it was tempting to play Qa3+ to possibly improve the position of the white queen. Only then I noticed that black could go wrong because of bankrank weaknesses. Was it bad that I hoped for that ? Or should "the better player" ("Good players are always lucky" - Capablanca) try to always challenge the opponent by playing the most annoying moves to deal with ?
After black's 19...Ra8?? I saw suddenly ghosts thinking that after 20.Qxa8+! black could play Nb6 to c8, and too quickly decided for 20.Rxb6
This was a 3+0 game, but at the end you still had 1 minute left. All is well that ends well, but a stronger opponent might not have grabbed your queen.
qa8 was also winning
Certainly there's nothing wrong with making the Qa3 check before attending at the f1 rook, and then it's perfectly okay to grab a pawn while making mating threats, still before fixing f1. Black could have answered better, but in any case you could still have played Re1 after that.
It could go wrong if black had counter-threatening moves, like 18... Be7, but in this case there were none, so it was good.
@tpr #2
You seem to be a stern teacher. First, in other comments of my postings, you make clear that I have time management issues because of losing on time in won positions in blitz. And now you tell me that I still have one minute left, which is also not okay ? :)
I did not mean to be stern, neither to teach. If you had spent some of your minute, then you would have found the mate in 2. If your opponent had spent some of his minute, then he would have found the defence ...Qc8 or ...Qd8. Ideally you should be at your last second when winning or losing.
@tpr Good point ! :) Years ago I have seen chess masters in otb tourneys using basically all of their time to find the best moves. Amazing, and something to work towards for ourselves.
#6 That's not really helpful advice though. You can't know in advance which moves will be important. If you spend a lot of time in some position to find that mate in X and then it's not there you are in the situation with no time in good position again...
The stronger the players the better they become at identifying critical positions but still...
As for the question, I play hope chess all the time. Have won countless dead lost positions with that. :)
#8 playing 3+0 as if it were 2+0 is not right.
Thinking over a strong move often shortens the game while an autopilot move may prolong it.
